Fronteras del Amor / Border of Love

For those of you that can't get enough telenovelas this one's for you! From the TV to the stage. Curtis Black wrote a wonderful piece I wanted to share with you. Make sure you check out Teatro Americano's performance. - Diana

Teens Stage 'Telenovela'
Newstip Date: 11-20-2008
This Newstip edited by Curtis Black
Contact: 312-344-7783 | fax 312-344-6404 | curtis@newstips.org

A telenovela for the stage, created by Pilsen and Little Village teens from Latinos Progresando's Teatro Americano, will be presented this weekend at DePaul's Lincoln Park campus.

"Fronteras del Amor/Borders of Love" was enthusiastically received when it premiered in August at the National Museum of Mexican Art. Following shows this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening, a four-week run is planned for next spring, said director Ricardo Gamboa.

Twenty-two young people developed material for the play during a seven-week theater workshop this summer. Along with intensive theater training they took workshops in youth, immigration and health issues. Through improvisations, journal writing and creative writing, and group discussions, they explored a range of topics and found and created stories relevant to them, Gamboa said.

Together they came up with frameworks, characters and situations needed to address specific issues, he said. "If we're going to talk about youth issues, we need a moment where someone is confronted by a gang; we need a moment where someone's confronted with sex or sexuality and has to make a decision; you need a moment where there's generational conflict." Gamboa and co-instructor Steven Beaudion took the frameworks and the multitude of stories and ideas generated by the teens and sketched out a script over a weekend.

Unlike standard telenovelas, which like soap operas tend to portray the lives of the wealthy, "Fronteras" focuses on the young workers at Los Milagros Taqueriea and the issues they face (including love, of course). The show also includes satirical commercials (one is for Border Runner sneakers).

The result is "esthetically on a par with the professional work that comes out of the city, and definitely more socially relevant than a lot of it," said Gamboa, who also works with the Barrel of Monkeys theater company. The comparison to TV dramas in the U.S., which almost exclusively exploit youth issues for their violence, is particularly striking, he says. "You can get a group of 22 young people off the streets of Chicago, and they can present something that's more sophisticated and thoughtful and nuanced" than professionals at the top of their field.

"Fronteras del Amor/Borders of Love" will be presented Friday, November 21 and Sunday, November 23 at DePaul's Corleylou Commons, 2324 N. Fremont, and Saturday, November 22 at the Student Center, 2250 N. Sheffield. All shows are at 6 p.m. Admission is $10.

Students from NMMA's Radio Arte WRTE also particiated in the workshop and created radionovels which are available on compact disc.

More Info:

• Ricardo Gamboa at Teatro Americano, 312-493-5829